January Financial Update

Well that was January, graveyard of New Years resolutions. By any measure the market performance in January was pretty incredible (or worrying if your world view is that way inclined). Most people are saying the market is overcooked, but they have been saying that for the last few years. I do wonder how much further it will go.

So here is how we did in January.

Market

Jan-18

S&P500

5.62%

NASDAQ

7.36%

DOW 30

5.79%

Benchmark Vanguard 2040 Fund

4.50%

Our Net Worth

3.46%

2018 Fire Rate = 1.8%

As you can see all markets were up over 5% with the benchmark Vanguard 2040 fund up 4.5%. Our own net worth was up 3.5% which is enough to fund the whole year and then some (as long as the market doesn’t drop).

We had a pretty good month spending wise and our own spending rate was prorated at 1.8% against our goal of under 2.8%.

January in Detail.

So a lot of January’s money is actually from December due to paying off credit card bills. So our grocery bill was at close to $650 was was over our goal of under $600 a month. January should be better.

Our entertainment and leisure expenditures was higher than normal due to Christmas presents and various trips we did over the holiday period. Spending on restaurants was high due to a couple of nice meals we had over Christmas. Also we had some medical expenses due to using up the last of our employee plan during December.

February shouldn’t be too bad. However there is a couple of large expenses coming in as we had to do some bathroom repairs and we also paid our flights for summer vacation (although half of that was done on points).

I’m happy with how 2018 started as we are we want to be on most of our objectives.

Great start to the year. The run in the markets has definitely been incredible, but I say it’s win-win either way from here – either it keeps running, or finally some good opportunities will arise to buy some good stocks 🙂

Michael, I’ve gone with this formula. FIRE rate is the annualized percent spend compared to net worth. 〈∑(Spend_Jan…….Spend_Dec)/∑(Networth_Jan……Networth_Dec)〉 *12 And for January it would just be (Spend_Jan/Networth_Jan) / * 12 The 12 times multiplier allows me to prorate and annualize. A 4% FIRE rate is the same as the oft quoted 4% rule, so anything under that should be sustainable, but we are aiming conservative by going for 2.5-2.8% So it will adjust month by month based on net worth fluctuation. For net worth I have excluded our kids 529 college plan, but I have included our primary residence. If… Read more »